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Apples, Oranges and Blowjobs

In the context of the allegations of sexual molestation against Judge Roy Moore, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand made the comment that President Bill Clinton should have resigned the presidency as a result of his involvement with Monica Lewinsky. To put this issue in its most benign terms, it seems to me the senator does not understand the difference between apples and oranges.

As degrading and disgusting as was Clinton’s behavior with Lewinsky in the oval office, it had nothing to do with sexual abuse. Lewinsky has never suggested that her relationship with Clinton was anything other than consensual. Nor was Clinton’s impeachment an accusation of his teenage libido. His high crime or misdemeanor as the Constitution so quaintly puts it, was the perjury he committed when he denied having “sex with that woman.” Even if you believe that Congress did not administer justice by failing to throw him out of office for lying under oath, Clinton was nonetheless tried and not convicted according to law. And even if you believe, as I certainly do, that he had a history of foisting himself on women by exercising the power of his various offices, up to and including sexual harassment, this was nevertheless not what Gillibrand was referencing. She in effect compared Clinton’s behavior toward Lewinsky with Moore’s persuasively documented molestation of teenagers.

Perhaps Clinton should have resigned as a matter of conscience, an act of political seppuku for having brought disgrace to the presidency. But by that standard, Clinton’s act was far less egregious that those of his role model, President Kennedy, whose use of the White House bedrooms did not bring shame to his office only because it was not public knowledge.

Admittedly, two wrongs (or in these cases, even many more than two) don’t make a right. But the fact that the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal and Moore are discussed in the same sentence is only a result of Moore’s enabler’s attempts to deflect the increasingly obvious fact that this self-styled paragon of Christianity is a sexual predator, pederast and lying scumbag. Moore’s similarity to Clinton is primarily having a president whose example he follows.

Senator Killibrand certainly cares deeply about preventing the sexual abuse of women. But linking Clinton to Moore is fatuous at best and if politically motivated (i.e., distancing herself from the Clintons), very bad judgment.